How do you know Sac wasn't just being a facetious jerk? (Or, being 'SacHawk' as I like to say.) Just kidding. (Not about Sac, though. )

I always take "deathbed confessions" with a grain of salt. It has nothing to do with these particular ones being UFO-related, it's just that you can't always trust that old people near death have all their mental faculties. I saw some rather strange stuff in my aunt's decline toward death in terms of her mental state.

I'm skeptical when it comes to evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence; but I'm not closed on the subject. I actually think it would be awesome if there are other intelligent civilizations in the universe. I find it fascinating; and I was always on Mulder's side in one of my favorite shows ever, The X-Files. However, much like believing in religion, I need a bit of verifiable proof. There is way too much evidence out there that human perception changes wildly based on what we subconsciously want to see. It literally affects what our brains think our eyes see and our ears hear; our brain reinterprets our sensory data to suit our beliefs and preferences, in other words.

I totally understand why you feel the way you do about the topic. Most humans who have not taken more than a casual glance at the phenomenon would feel that way for good reason. It's not quantifiable (yet) in everyday scientific terms. It seems to exist primarily in the peripheral of our everyday reality. One source of contention I have (and not with you personally but in general) is the idea that there is no physical evidence. Between the physical trace cases, radar tracking and eye witnesses that range from top generals to pilots and police officers, there's more than enough proof in my mind that something strange indeed is going on here and that it very much points to an extraterrestrial hypothesis.

I'm too old now to get on my soap box and try to convert the masses. I leave that to my younger years where I was blissfully and ignorantly hopeful that humanity could awaken simply because you wanted them to.

I wasn't being my usual self when I made my earlier comment. I actually did find it interesting. And for the record, I'm with Aros on this one. Too many top generals and people high up in the defense industry in general have come out saying the same types of things.

1. Not necessarily true but it's hard to see why a dying person would feel motivated to lie about something of the magnitude in question.

2. Someone who dedicates a large portion of their lives to researching the phenomenon would not have the option to deny it. The collective evidence is real and documented. What's to deny?

3. Reminds me of that line in Men In Black where the older agent tells Will Smith's character that people prefer to remain blissfully ignorant and it was their job to keep the dark truths out of their lives.

That was fascinating Todd. Thanks for sharing it! I find it very interesting, and pretty much in line with a lot I've heard. I heard a lot as a kid. A LOT. Too much. I remember hearing about the SR 71 Blackbird from the time I was a tiny kid. My Dad was working for the government starting in I believe 1964 based in Seattle and then Auburn (in the GSA building across from the Supermall).

He was always a bit sketchy about what he did, but I'd hear things and be kind of blown away. Not about aliens, but about how much was going on that we had no idea of. I remember once seeing a "toy" SR71 Blackbird, and my dad saying, "It doesn't really look like that." He was right. It was what somebody thought it looked like. So that tells me that he must have seen one, which makes some sense considering all of the places he was going and what he was doing. He took a random trip to Nevada to "inventory" stuff, and that was interesting. It was like he got really quiet after he got back. When I asked where he went he just said, "Carson City". I asked why he didn't fly, as he'd been told he had to take a car, and he said, "Because I needed a car." I asked why he didn't just fly and rent a car like usual, and he said I had to stop asking questions. Very interesting thing. Why in the heck would he have to drive a government vehicle to Nevada and go to Carson City of all places from his office in Washington? It was bizarre. The best I can figure now, is he needed the government vehicle in order to get access to where he had to go, and he wasn't going to Carson City, or he'd have flown commercial and driven a rental like he'd do on most trips where he had to go inventory a base or whatever. Strange things.

Everything I have researched in 25 years points to a collective of Non Human Intelligence that has been able to stay rather stealthy for the most part due to what appears to be technology and a species thousands and perhaps millions of years in advance of our own. Can you imagine if we showed an iPad to someone in the 18th Century? So using that philosophy, suddenly it's not so crazy to imagine Beings that are completely capable of manipulating the very fabric of Time and Space. To render their craft invisible when they want, or defy gravity and all the other known laws of physics. To me, it's completely understandable.

The problem is, most of us assume we are at the top of the hierarchy and technological food chain. That's simpleton talk. One day, this all will be common knowledge. In the meantime we are stuck still debating if we are alone in the Universe. It's a paradox. So maddeningly obvious that we are not, yet understandable why most still wonder.

Cool story, Shark, btw! One thing that I can state as fact is if the government/military needs to keep a secret, they keep a secret.

Aros wrote:Everything I have researched in 25 years points to a collective of Non Human Intelligence that has been able to stay rather stealthy for the most part due to what appears to be technology and a species thousands and perhaps millions of years in advance of our own. Can you imagine if we showed an iPad to someone in the 18th Century? So using that philosophy, suddenly it's not so crazy to imagine Beings that are completely capable of manipulating the very fabric of Time and Space. To render their craft invisible when they want, or defy gravity and all the other known laws of physics. To me, it's completely understandable.

The problem is, most of us assume we are at the top of the hierarchy and technological food chain. That's simpleton talk. One day, this all will be common knowledge. In the meantime we are stuck still debating if we are alone in the Universe. It's a paradox. So maddeningly obvious that we are not, yet understandable why most still wonder.

Cool story, Shark, btw! One thing that I can state as fact is if the government/military needs to keep a secret, they keep a secret.

Thanks, I agree on all points by the way. I think I am kind of looking at this stuff in a bit of the way of "We're only protecting you from yourself, if you knew the truth, it would be too hard to handle." And also, we tend to fear what we don't understand. If we find out we don't understand ourselves and our existence and we're some "experiment", so that create mass suicides and craziness because people feel like they've been duped? Or is that a legit fear if they admit we are not alone? I know this sounds bonkers, and I've never been accused of being sane... but I have never been accused of being crazy either. I'm a loudmouth, but not insane.

I just see too much that adds up. Evidence is evidence. I've seen more of UFO's up close and personal than I ever have angels. That's not to belittle religion, because I am sort of religious. The biggest joke around this place is that I'm the Mormon idiot that lives in Utah and always talks about BYU. I think that belief system sounds a lot crazier than a lot of other theories, but I am ok with that. It works for me. It works for my wife and kids. We're a happy crew. We aren't the "takes orders from supreme authority" types, and people mix up Mormons with Quakers and Amish. We have TV's, internet, houses, cars, normal clothes, and I even drop a few f-bombs now and then and have gotten busted by Les more than a few times. Don't judge my religion on me... I'm just saying it's not as nutty as people think. But take any "belief system" you want and you can find flaws and "weird stuff", and I see the belief in extra-terrestrial life and the fact that there is a lot going on out there as a pretty tame one compared to a lot of beliefs that people have in the majority of the world.

It just seems to get marginalized and mocked, just like that guy was saying in the first video... they debunked and made everybody seem like a dingbat. Why? Why do that if there wasn't some reason to do so? Religions do the same thing. So do cults. So do governments. So do fascist dictators. Everybody has a way of controlling the trouble makers who mix things up.

New and interesting and exciting things are always welcome to me. You mentioned the iPod Aros. Just think of this.... think of every piece of technology you and I use in our homes today and give that stuff to the 10 year old "us" and your mind would be blown. I saw a Commodore PET computer in Kindergarten and thought it was the bee's knees and nothing would ever surpass that crazy contraption. My watch is more powerful than that thing. I heard MIDI music and was blown away by the "realism". Now I hear it and think it sounds like crap. WAV files were the most amazing thing I'd seen. I imagined a day when we had something better and then the MP3 came around. Amazing!

A good conversation to have with a parent or other elder is to ask them all of the things that have been invented in their lifetime. I have had that talk with my mom who is 72 and we really dig into some neat stuff every time. I love it. I had a professor once in college who told us about how his teacher had told them about an amazing new substance called "plastic" and that it was going to change the world. The kids all laughed, and his teacher said, "just you wait and see." We see how that worked out. So in the lifetime of my teacher to me we'd gone to having plastic to where 90% of the crap we have is made of it.

I rule nothing out, and I'm inclined to believe that there's a whole lot more out there. I'll try to let you guys know if the black suits show up at my house and tell me to shut my yap.

Like you Shark, I've seen UFOs up close and personal (well, to a degree...No anal probes I'm proud to admit) which can obviously strengthen your viewpoint right quick.

Like I said earlier in the thread, there's no luxury of denial when you've witnessed the truth with your own eyes. Add to that the mountain of data that exists if you take the time to research it with regards to the phenomenon and it becomes understandable why I chuckle a bit when people tell me there's no such thing as UFOs. You may as well tell me Russell Wilson sucks as an NFL quarterback.

I don't mean to sound smug but this is one topic I don't F around with and feel 100% confident in my convictions about. I've done my time. I've done the groundwork. Studied, researched, compared data and repeat for more than half my life. I get that this is not a topic that is mainstream acceptable and I certainly understand those who haven't studied the phenomenon with any real ounce of seriousness and diligence will feel like there's nothing to it. As frustrating as that can be, I get it.

I've never, ever been convinced that the five physical senses is all there is to life. Not sure why, but there you have it. I have always felt intuitively that there's more to life than science's current understanding of it. I am an easy target for the hardcore scientists among us because they assume my viewpoint is lazy logic. Since it's not based within the parameters of what they deem accepted tools of understanding reality in the first place, I can easily understand why the topic of UFOs, the paranormal, metaphysics, et al...is looked at with little more than the patronizing nod when the child talks about Santa or the Tooth Fairy.

Tell Les that what he saw in the 60's was nothing more than a misidentified airplane, swamp gas or Venus and wait for the backlash. Now multiply Les times several million. That gives us a good indication of how many human beings have been witness to something extraordinary and yes, perhaps extraterrestrial since the beginning of human history.

To me, there simply is no bigger story. The implications of exposing the truth concerning this phenomenon cannot be overstated enough. That is why I salute each and every person with credentials with a lot to lose who comes forward with their stories and information.

We may no longer burn people at the stake for their beliefs but the flame of ridicule is as hot as any ember laid at the feet of those in the past who dared to draw outside the lines of conventional wisdom.

Excellent Aros. Excellent all around. This movement is growing, and it's not full of "wack-a-doodles". We are normal people, living normal lives, doing normal things. We're your friends, neighbors, teachers, lawyers, police officers, car mechanics, store owners, graphic designers (see.. I snuck that one in there), and on and on. Game, set, match. You win... because what you wrote above is pure awesome.

Too many respected people have come forward over the years to keep brushing this whole business under the rug. We're not children. We can handle the truth. Heck, even children can handle the truth, and they are children.

Today I was driving on the freeway and I was getting followed by a black GMC SUV with blacked out windows and I seriously thought of you Todd, and said, "Uh oh... they're after me and going to tell me to keep my mouth shut!".

Thankfully, they were just really bad drivers like I am and were choosing the same weaving in and out of freeway traffic at 90 mph thing I was because I was running late for a meeting with the state. They drove by eventually and it was just a family that I could see through the tint, but when it was behind me I was laughing thinking, "What if?" That would have been a story to tell eh? Then we'd know we're really on to something, and they are watching US. Spooky.

My interest in these things was pretty much limited to movies and the like, till a couple of years ago. Me & my wife were driving on a clear night when, right in front of us, one of the stars in the sky suddenly dropped straight down. Shooting star/meteor/satellite would be the obvious answer - except this thing went in a straight line down and stopped dead, just over the treeline. There was time enough for a sharp intake of breath from us, then it vanished. The only thing I took from that was a sense of being grateful that someone else witnessed it, so at least I can be baffled in good company!

I know you didn't ask me twisted, but I think the Hellyer video is exactly the kind of thing that the "it's all dingbats and loonies" want to be out there. Hellyer is a smart guy. EXTREMELY smart. He's connected like nobody's business. But in the video he came off as confused and sort of a loon. The VIP's he's talking to are kind of snickering at things, and he's kind of going down some crazy sounding rabbit holes. It was confusing and it was all information that has been out there forever. Everybody who is into this stuff knows the story of the tall whites and Nellis Air Force base.

The whole, "International Conspiracy" level, is nothing new. What would have given his statements so much value and really advanced the conversation is if he had said, "As secretary of defence..... I saw many things that were neither explained away or people that were labeled as 'crazy'. I've seen evidence of these things, and THIS government's attempts to cover it up."

Instead it was all about how the United States was OBVIOUSLY hiding things from Canada and working with this sinister group to advance their own military and such, all of this at the cost of Canada. It's probably very true in a lot of ways, (even if you throw UFO's out of the equation, and just look at how the US has consistently used Canada and Australia as well for military support in their wars, but isn't really big on sharing anything back... the "British Commonwealths" are basically used as extra bodies and equipment, without being privvy to the same levels of information and involvement in the process as the extremely close relationship between the US and Britain).

I think he brings up massively valid points there. If it's ok for their soldiers to die over what we're doing, then they need the entire story, and they need access to the same information that the US and Britain have always shared and had access to since the "Allies" formed initially in the early 1900's and have been "BFF's" ever since. It's like the US Air Force and the RAF are a single entity that somehow is the only one who is allowed to know the whole story on the issues of air travel, air defense, and everything that has gone on and created big issues. He mentions the story in Europe where things moved down and nobody got an accurate reporting. I've heard that story before, and it is truly amazing how quickly the Brits and US took over and sort of iced out every other Ally and the UN and others that were involved initially in dealing with it (If it's the story I'm thinking of.... they got guys out of Rammstein to the area in a hurry, and the low level Army guys who had picked things up were sent away and the commanders of the USAF and RAF were Johnny on the spot and "contained" the situation, and that was the end of it.... nothing to see here... as usual).

I'd love to hear him stand up and give specifics of things that actually happened to him when he approached the other Allies and asked for information or reported things that got buried, etc. I realize he may still be stuck under the confidentiality clauses and his sworn oath and duty to the countries that we all lean so heavily on and vice-versa (the USA, Canada, Australia, England, and to a lesser extent Germany, Poland, and France, and Japan through their financial assistance, but not military) are like a tee-pee and depend on each other, and that's the way it should work. The fact that the USA and England see it more like the fact that they are an archway between each other, and the other guys are just sort of guy wires that support the thing, but have no real "roots" as part of the structure is what seems to be a major frustration point. Not just on sharing classified information, but in general. I think he has a very valid concern considering the amount of lives they've put in the direct line of fire for years and years for us, but they are never given the whole story. I'd be pissed to. I'm sure he got treated like "little brother" every time he sat in a meeting with the others and then there were separate meetings between the military heads of the US and England and that would irritate me to. It does irritate me, and I'm not even Canadian. They have been nothing but great to us for about 200 years, and are the best neighboring country you could ask for in almost every way, and we treat them like Cinderella.

muxpux wrote:can you imagine what proof of intelligent life outside earth would do to pretty much every religion? i would assume, should there be such proof, that has to be the main factor in hiding it right?

it would turn the 85% (generous?) of the worlds population on its head.

^^That alone would be a believable reason why the whole thing would be covered up^^

When people ask why aliens have never stopped and got out to say hi, I'm always reminded of a line in the The Mothman Prophecy.

"I think we can assume that these entities are more advanced than us. Why don't they just come right out and tell us what's on their minds?"

"You're more advanced than a cockroach, have you ever tried explaining yourself to one of them?"

As Michael Crichton points out in his novel Congo, which features a gorilla named Amy that knows sign language, how do we know we're smarter? We can teach gorillas to speak to us, but nobody has been able to learn how to speak to a gorilla in their language.

muxpux wrote:can you imagine what proof of intelligent life outside earth would do to pretty much every religion? i would assume, should there be such proof, that has to be the main factor in hiding it right?

it would turn the 85% (generous?) of the worlds population on its head.

It's absolutely with no doubt in my mind one of the main reasons those In The Know have kept this phenomenon from the public as best they can. However, some like the retired Roman Catholic priest Monsignor Corrado Balducci has quite a bit to say on the topic which suggests some religious leaders could broaden the parameters of their faith by including the reality of extraterrestrials:

"It is reasonable to believe and to affirm that extraterrestrials exist. Their existence can no longer be denied, for there is too much evidence for the existence of extraterrestrials and flying saucers as documented by UFO research. To assert categorically that they are illusions and hallucination, or that eyewitness testimony accounts are not credible, is wrong....This would have serious consequences for religion itself, since religion is founded on an historical incident, on the birth of Jesus Christ....of whom we have knowledge through testimony, the Gospels."

When asked if some of the angels might be extraterrestrials from planets located closer to God, Balducci answered:

"Well, if you ask whether the angels can assume a body to reveals themselves, I would have to say yes--that it is possible, but it would be an exceptional case....I would not assume that angels use flying saucers. But of course they can utilize them to show us something....I did not want to imply....that angels really come to us in flying saucers. Such a claim requires scientific proof. Let science prove that angels travel in flying saucers! I shall neither rule this out or affirm it."

What influence will the discoveries of UFO research....and of extraterrestrial life have on the theology of the third millennium?

"They will certainly influence the theology of the third millennium. I wish theologians would orient themselves more with the help of scientific discoveries and accept parapsychology. Parapsychology is a difficult science; it has a small scientific foundation, but it relies on two facts: 1. It employs a scientific method, as does UFO research. 2. The parapsychological phenomena originate in nature, a realm we do not yet know completely. We should seek the explanations (for such things as) telepathy, telekinesis, psychometrics, etc.